The thesis defines the place of the variety art phenomenon in the Ukrainian culture of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century. It justifies the conceptual-methodological basis science of variety arts as the art direction, the study of variety art in its genre, generic and species branches, defines the basic principles of variety art. There were covered the stages of development of the Ukrainian vocal music of the twentieth century, identified the specific features of variety vocal in its differences from the academic vocal, marked modern trends in variety-music aesthetics. It reflects the perception and evaluation problem of the vocal art music in Ukrainian culture of the early twenty-first century. It was determined that a variety music as an artistic phenomenon is an important part of the cultural life of Ukraine. Evolution of a variety art as a cultural phenomenon reflects the social and political processes taking place in the country. It was proved that throughout the history of the development of the Ukrainian variety art the leading socio-cultural function was aesthetic, which reduced its value only during the show business time (1990s - beginning of the 21st century). In the Soviet period (1920-50-ies) the main customer of a variety art was the top Party officials, respectively, the main engine of the development of variety art was its ideological component, which slightly decreased during the NEP period (20-ies) and the Khrushchev's "thaw" (1953-1964), when he lost to entertainment and recreation. It is shown that the ideological function in the USSR was inseparably linked with instructional function that separated Soviet music from its Western counterparts - cabaret, vaudeville, burlesque, music hall, show-business. Up to the 1990s the development of the Soviet variety arts, including of Ukrainian, took place in the socio-cultural triad "ideological - instructional - aesthetic", with a temporary strengthening of the entertainment and recreation beginning in the period of NEP and Khrushchev's "thaw". The destruction of the triad had led to the loss of two other functions - educational and the aesthetic, bringing the entertainment and recreation at the first place. In the show-business, despite the searching for new artistic forms, we see the variety art value reduction in the national culture, which negatively affected the contemporary Ukrainian culture. This work identifies and describes seven basic foundations of variety art. The openness of the stage based on an active artist's dialogue with his audience; the ease outlines the specificity of variety art perception that doesn't require any preliminary audience preparation; the synthetically character determines the combination of variety arts elements of different art forms; conciseness implies a high concentration of content in the piece; improvisation is the creative component of the artist's stage acting, his openness to a particular audience reaction; mobility implies the ability of the artist to execute stage work under all conditions (occupational mobility) and rapid response to the demands of society (social mobility); the individuality of the artist is in the constant search of originality, identity, individual manner of performance, his own stage image. It is noted that the basic foundations of variety art are universal to all types and genres. An essential attribute of the contemporary vocal arts is the concept of "sound" (spatial sound image) - integrated sound characteristic of the singer's voice, his solo embrace. Modern variety singing differs from the academic voice training in the sound generation and its attack, voice techniques and effects (growl, rattle, distortion, creak, scream, etc). The acoustic conditions where the variety singer works have changed and moved the sound generation to the speech position. Musical rhythm also takes a particular importance in the vocals. Vocal variety art has its own tradition of historiography, at the same time, its theoretical base is not perfect. Terminology of variety vocal is not yet unified, artistic and aesthetic criteria for the evaluation of the variety art phenomena are uncertain, there is a shortage of art staff, that a is professionally engaged in informational, critical and research activities in the field of music. The analysis of the recent modern music scientific studies has shown that the historical development of the foreign entertainment industry is shown as the only correct example for the development of domestic show-business. It is noted that the orientation only on the Western models are false, because the development of the Ukrainian platform can only be successful in combining achievements of the variety music world experience with national cultural traditions. It is proved that taking into account the historical experience of the national stage, its values orientation and aesthetic criteria will contribute to the renewal of the national variety art traditions and will enrich its golden fund.
